


XO

by s_elizabeth8



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:11:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2015817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_elizabeth8/pseuds/s_elizabeth8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The truth is: our story is remarkable no matter who he is or who I am."</p>
<p>"Then why are you here?"</p>
<p>That was a good question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	XO

November 2014

"The truth is: our story is remarkable no matter who he is or who I am." Mackenzie Ramsey looked down at a loose thread on her button up as she spoke, ignoring the sight of the doctor scribbling furiously on a pad of paper. It was chambray, light denim with tiny anchors on it. It had been one of her favorite shirts, but now she would only associate it with him and this. Sighing, Mackenzie gathered the courage to look up, peering across the small office as the doctor continued to write. For a moment, the thought crossed her mind that the doctor wasn't even listening to her. She'd only been there for a few minutes and hadn't said enough to warrant this kind of response.

Suddenly though, as if coming to a realization, the pen stopped scratching against the pad and the woman looked up with pursed her lips. "What do you mean?" In response, Mackenzie raised her eyebrows, unsure what the woman was referring to. "How is your story remarkable?"

"Oh." Mackenzie looked down again, embarrassed that she'd said that. "Well, I guess because it didn't matter where he was from and where I was from or what either of us did. I was a rebound relationship, but it didn't matter." She shrugged her response, hoping that the older woman took it at face value. She moved her fiddling hands to her red skinny jeans now, stretching them out on the material covering her thigh over and over, watching her fingers smooth, then clench, then smooth again. She wished she'd remembered to grab her glasses on her way out of the house this morning, but in a rush and with a lot on her mind, she'd forgotten. Now she had the headache to pay for it. "We loved each other."

The doctor cleared her throat. "Loved?"

Wincing, Mackenzie knew better than to give the woman a hint like that. She kept her eyes trained on her hands and wondered if she looked possessed or deranged. "Love."

"Then why are you here?"

That was a good question. It was a question that Mackenzie had been asking herself since she'd been informed of the appointment only a week earlier. His assistant had been the one to call, an embarrassing call from both ends of the phone. He was incredulous that he'd been charged with that task and she was embarrassed that other people knew about their problems. It had made her wonder who else knew about this appointment.

For a fleeting second, Mackenzie let her gaze fall on her purse before licking her lips quickly and moving her eyes back to their original spot. She wished she had the courage to reach into her bag, check her messages or even grab the chapstick she'd needed since she got out of the car.

"Mackenzie?" Her eyes flitted up at the informal greeting. Until this point, it had been Ms. Ramsey this and Ms. Ramsey that. It must have been four or five times in their initial meeting and introduction that she'd said it, but now she was addressing Mackenzie as the woman had requested.

"Yes?"

"Why are you here?" She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Asking the question again wouldn't make the answer any different, or any easier to come by.

Squinting her eyes, Mackenzie moved her gaze to the open window as she tried to come up with a good answer to the question. Why was she here? It had something to do with him and his ex-fiancé and the fact that she lived in Maryland and he lived in California, but beyond that, she didn't know what had driven him to make her this appointment. Swallowing hard, she did her best to avoid the gaze of the doctor until she was ready. Finally, she met the woman's eyes. "We met in Maryland," she sighed, crossing her right leg over the left and grabbing her purse, clutching it on her lap as she searched it blind for chap stick. Upon finding it, she applied it, threw back in the bag and then dropped the bag on the carpeted floor. She could tell that the doctor was waiting patiently for more information. "I was born in Maryland. I've lived here my whole life." Mackenzie let her eyes drift and the woman took that as a sign to interrupt.

"I thought, in your story, it doesn't matter where you're both from."

Snapping her eyes back, Mackenzie frowned. "It doesn't." She felt a vibration coming from somewhere at her feet and realized that was the start of it. She wondered if it was one of his co-stars that she'd gotten close to, or maybe her older sister with whom he had a strangely close relationship. "It doesn't, I was just telling you." She shook her head and slowly drew her hands to rest on either side of her body, flat down on the couch. What was she supposed to do with them while she was talking? "I resisted him at first, when we met, but he was persistent and I've always been bad at saying no, so despite myself I said yes and I went on a date with him." Now, Mackenzie cocked her head to the side and covered her mouth with her right hand, drawing her left to her lap. "Ask me where our first date was."

Somewhat bemused, the doctor inquired, "Where was your first date?"

Rolling her eyes, Mackenzie moved her hand and intertwined them together in a tight fist on her leg. "A movie premiere." With that she completely uncrossed her body, feeling herself come apart, strangely light and fluid after admitting that. Her eyes trained on her shoes, brown loafers she'd thrown on with the intention of changing them. That had never happened. When she spoke next, it didn't sound like herself. It was some... stranger. "Who takes a girl to a movie premiere as their first date?" She wasn't even sure if she was talking to the doctor or herself. "He spent most of the night with his co-stars. He had to take pictures with them and do interviews. He sat next to me in the movie and whispered things to me about filming and about how pretty I looked." Taking a deep breath, she continued. "In the bathroom, I heard two girls talking about me; talking about how they'd heard my dress was from J. Crew and who would wear J. Crew to a movie premiere."

"Who were the girls? Were they his friends?"

She shook her head, hoping that the doctor's eyes were on her because she wasn't responding aloud. There were tears threatening and she needed to pull herself together before she continued the story. God, were they really this fucked up? Is that why he'd asked her to come see this woman? Anger replaced the sadness and she clenched her hands into fists at her sides. "They were friends of his ex. She'd originally been invited, obviously, but they'd broken up. I think..." She shook her head again, hearing the conversation run through her head again, hearing their tone and their disgust and their nasty laughs as they'd made fun of her job, her dress, suggesting that this would drive him back to Miley. "I think she had gotten them an invitation before they'd broken up, so they went anyway." She reached up to rub her nose. She hoped the doctor hadn't noticed her unclench and re-clench her hand to do it. "Maybe they were sent to spy on him, I don't know."

That was the end of it as far as Mackenzie was concerned. She stayed quiet, hoping that the doctor would understand that was where they were finished. "Did you tell him?" There was an evenness to her tone, but her eyebrows read surprised.

A look of gross disbelief appeared on her face. "No! Why would I do that? It was a first date!"

"Not even later when it was clear that you two were going to pursue a relationship?" Mackenzie shook her head vehemently and the doctor pursed her lips once again. "Did you think he felt that way about you, too?"

Crinkling her eyebrows, Mackenzie asked, "What do you mean?"

"What the girls were saying about you in the bathroom. Do you think he felt that way, too?"

"How could he not? His co-star showed up in Dior and I showed up in J. Crew." Suddenly, Mackenzie lifted her hands, waving them between herself and the doctor. "This is stupid. It's not why I'm here."

"So why are you here?" There was that question again. The doctor’s voice was insistent this time, her eyes narrowed.

Instead of answering it, Mackenzie sighed. "We met at the beginning of November. One of my students had won a contest to have the cast of the movie come to our school, talk to the kids and then show the new movie." Her mind wandered back to that day. He'd looked so gorgeous in his button up and clean shaven face. He'd sent a chill down her spine as soon as he smiled at her.

"But you didn't like him at first?"

"I never said I didn't like him." She shook her head hard. "I said I was resistant." Silence followed while she tried to come up with a better way to say it. "I was suspicious of him."

"Why?"

She gave the doctor another look of disbelief. Was this woman crazy? "Look at me. Have you ever seen him?"

"You're a beautiful woman, Ms. Ramsey." There it was again. "What makes you think you didn't deserve him?"

"It wasn't that I didn't deserve him, it's that.... why did he want me? Was it a dare? Was it for a joke?"

A light smile appeared on the woman's face. "This isn't a movie. Freddie Prinze Junior isn't orchestrating some bet here."

Though she appreciated the She's All That reference, Mackenzie wouldn't let herself return the smile. "Our second date was Thanksgiving. He invited himself. Well... my sister invited him, but after some not so subtle hints from him."

More scribbling. Mackenzie wondered why the woman hadn't scribbled all through the business about Miley's stupid and insipid friends in the bathroom and Jen wearing Dior and feeling inadequate for him. Maybe that's what she was doing now. "Tell me about your sister."

That was unexpected. Mackenzie drew her head back and stared at the doctor in surprise. "What?" The doctor met her eyes, question reading through them. "Tell you about my sister?" She nodded. "Um, okay. Her name is Sadie. She, um, works for the State Department. She and her husband live in Capitol Hill."

"How did she know him to invite him to your second date?"

Mackenzie considered the question and blushed, caught. "Okay, so Thanksgiving was our third date. For our second date, he flew into Washington, DC and took me out for dinner. He picked me up at my sister's house because she lives there and when he dropped me off, he came in for a drink." She swallowed hard. "It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, so when Sadie asked him what his plans were, and he didn't have any, she invited him." Tucking her head against her chest. "Third date."

"Did he meet your whole family?"

"He already knew Sadie and Pete, her husband. He met my parents and my younger brother."

"How would you describe the day?"

Thinking back, Mackenzie twisted her lips into a thoughtful expression. "Cold," she said before laughing slightly and shaking her head. At the doctor's curious look, she provided, "We did a Turkey Trot in the morning. He wasn't used to how cold it was and he complained every quarter mile."

The doctor nodded, making a note. Mackenzie wondered if it was the whimsical smile on her face that the doctor was writing down a comment about. When had she started smiling, she wondered. Was it while she was thinking about their Turkey Trot? How he'd kept trying to get her to peel off and turn around early, or at least stop at a Starbucks along the route. "I'll just run in real quick," he'd said. "It's Thanksgiving Day," she'd responded, shoving his shoulder playfully, "Nothing is open."

Things hadn't been bad at all that day, she realized now. As she opened her mouth to say this, an alarm that Mackenzie didn't know had been set went off, surprising her and making her start.

With a terse look, the doctor regarded the clock beside her and then clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "That's time's up, I'm afraid." Mackenzie bit her bottom lip. Did this mean she was done? How great would that be? "He's made another appointment for you to come see me next week, same time."

Of course she wasn't done. Nodding slowly, accepting her fate, Mackenzie grabbed her purse and then pushed herself up into a standing position. The doctor rose as well. "I have some homework for you." She resisted the urge to groan, feeling more like one of her students rather than a teacher. "I want you to make a bad/good list." Mackenzie nodded, still not totally understanding, but the doctor continued before she could ask. "On the bad side, things he did or said that made you feel bad and on the good side, the opposite. Do you think you can do that?"

"And you want me to bring it next week?"

"Yes, please." Nodding, Mackenzie held out her hand for the doctor to shake, informed her it was nice to meet her and then was out of the office before she could be given another assignment (she wished she'd have thought to bring her school issued agenda book).

Once out in the hallway, Mackenzie wrenched her cell phone out of her purse and let out a surprised squeak when she realized that it hadn't been one of her friends or his to call her, but rather him. She called back immediately. "Hello, darling," his voice rang out after the second ring. His voice always made her heart melt and this time was no exception. "How was your appointment?"

"I hate you for making me go," she announced as she unlocked her car, tossing her bag in and then getting in herself. She didn't turn the engine, wanting to talk to him for awhile instead.

"I love you." God, he was saccharine. "Was it terrible?"

"It was..." How was it? She didn't even feel like she and the doctor had talked about that much. "She kept asking why I was there. But I didn't know, did I? Because one day Tucker called me and informed me that I had this appointment and you wouldn't talk about why."

He chuckled quietly and she wasn't sure if the sound level was so that she couldn't hear it or so his co-stars couldn't. "Jen says hello," he said instead of what she wanted to hear. "She and Josh want to know if you're going to come up when we're in New York for a brief visit."

Jaw slack, Mackenzie resisted the urge to punch her steering wheel. "Are you listening to me? Am I making sense to you?"

"What's wrong Mackenzie?"

"You put me in therapy!" she cried, throwing up the hand not occupied by her iPhone. "And you think we're fine? You think that everything is honky dory and I can just come up and see you and your friends whenever you guys want?"

Over the phone, she heard a substantial pause and then a huge sigh. "There is a reason for this, Mackenzie. I can't tell you right now and I think once you get it, you'll appreciate it, but I still love you, you know and we're still together."

She didn't believe him, but in an effort to end the fight, she said, "Okay," but she knew that he wouldn't believe her either.

They spoke for a few more minutes before Mackenzie made her excuses, told him she loved him and hung up, dropping her head to the steering wheel. What were they doing? Was this a precursor to him breaking up with her? If that were the case, she'd thank him very much not to make him rehash their entire relationship before doing it. Her finger hovered over his number once more, planning to call him and tell him just that, but she managed to stop herself. Better not, she thought before dropping her phone into the cup holder and then starting up the car.

Maybe he was right, she considered, trying to make the best of the situation, maybe it would all make sense at the end and they would come out of this relationship bigger and better.

As she drove home, Mackenzie's mind flitted back to her conversation with the doctor. The woman had been surprised when she'd told her she didn't share her experience in the bathroom at the premiere with him. Maybe that had been the wrong move.

That was the first event in her bad column.


End file.
